Integrate facilities and IT. Realize the value of the green data center.As data center costs continue to rise, green is the word of the day. What it means is cost savings through consolidation and lower energy usage, as this white paper shows. See the role energy consumption plays in today’s data centers, and how IBM Tivoli® solutions can help optimize energy use.
Energy managementWhite paper
Realizing the value of the green data center
by integrating facilities and IT.
August 2008Realizing the value of the green data center by integrating facilities and IT.2
IntroductionContents Although labor costs still dominate the expenses of operating a modern data
2 Introduction center, energy costs, in the form of electrical power, typically are the second-1 2 Moving toward green data centers largest expense. The continuing increase in computing demand drives energy
3 Evaluating the technical factors costs - both direct power consumption by servers and other IT equipment,
5 Optimizing the green data center and indirect consumption by facilities.
5 Metric collection, analytics, thresholding and eventing According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, energy consumption
6 Managing energy events by servers and data centers in the United States is expected to nearly double
6 Understanding business impact in the next five years to more than 100 billion kWh, costing about $7.4 billion 6 Analytics and predictions annually. Similar energy cost increases are expected in Europe, Asia and else-
7 Visualization and reporting where. According to one study, worldwide spending on powering data centers 2 8 Asset management and spatial is projected to triple by 2010. To compound the problem, server utilization
awareness is typically less than 10 percent, driving a waste of $140 billion in "excess" 3 8 Optimizing power usage and cost server capacity.
9 IBM Tivoli solutions for the green data center This white paper - along with its companion white paper, "Taking an inte-
10 IBM Tivoli Monitoring for grated approach to energy efficiency with IBM Tivoli software" - discusses
Energy Management the importance of managing energy consumption in data centers and how 4 10 Event integration systems management technologies contribute to green management. The
10 Facilities and business service paper provides an overview of green data centers and the significant role
management played by direct and indirect power consumption in today's data centers,
11 Asset management as well as technology aspects of green data center management. It then ® 11 Spatial visualization describes the specific ways IBM Tivoli solutions can help optimize energy
11 Usage and accounting use in the data center.
11 Storage Moving toward green data centers 11 IBM Tivoli Data Center Optimization for Energy Beyond green initiatives such as reducing carbon footprint and environmen-
Management tally friendly asset disposal, managing energy consumption is a major factor in
11 Provisioning in an on achieving a "green" data center. In fact, Gartner Group reports that "green IT" 5demand manner will be the top strategic technology in 2008.
12 Summary 12 For more information 12 About IBM Service ManagementRealizing the value of the green data center by integrating facilities and IT.3
One major obstacle to efficient energy consumption, however, is the com-Highlights mon practice of separating IT and facilities information. Traditionally there One major obstacle to efficient energy has been little aggregation of facilities energy information with IT equipment consumption is the common practice of energy information. Yet facilities account for more than half of the energy separating IT and facilities information 3consumption in a typical data center. With cooling equipment requiring a large amount of electrical power and comprising a large amount of the total energy usage, any improvement in airflow management or power savings from IT equipment (for example, less heat generated) can have additional benefits 4by reducing the power required for cooling. Components such as humidifiers, UPS units and lighting also offer opportunities for energy management and optimization of the data center.
Breaking down the traditional walls between IT and facilities can provide a critical enabler for managing the green data center. With the ability to aggregate IT and facilities information, organizations can readily provide answers to the questions that enable them to move toward a green data center, including:
. What is the energy impact by business service and resource type?. How do specific... [download for more]
